Derby Talk

Derby Talk is a forum for Pinewood Derby, Awana Grand Prix, Kub Kar Rally, Shape N Race Derby, Space Derby, Raingutter Regatta and other similar races where a child and an adult work together to create a race vehicle and a lot of fun and memories

hatfam wrote:On a 3 lane track, If I use the "point system" for scoring, instead of assigning 1 point for first place I would like to assign 3pts. Is this possible?

If you are scoring manually, "golf style" scoring (1, 2, 3 points for first through third) is easier than the more usual 3, 2, 1 scoring. If you are "mechanized", then it depends on your choice of software. To my thinking, most youngsters are better attuned to the "higher score is better" idea and have not matured to the level of golf scoring where "lower is better." So long as the number of heats for each entrant are equal and the scoring is linear, the points schemes are equivalent.

Golf scoring has another (in my mind, small) advantage ... it is easier to compute each racer's average finish place. A racer who scores 9 points over 4 heats has an "average finish place" of 9/4 or 2.25, i.e. mostly 2nd place in heats but sometimes 3rd!

We are using GPRM software. I too, think the kids will understand a standard scoring system VS's golf scoring. Was wanting to see if the software would allow this. I just got the software and am still learning its ins and outs.

hatfam wrote:We are using GPRM software. I too, think the kids will understand a standard scoring system VS's golf scoring. Was wanting to see if the software would allow this. I just got the software and am still learning its ins and outs.

The points scoring in GPRM is not configurable. I never really saw enough justification to change it from golf scoring. Anyways, it really is the parents that need to understand the scoring, since they are the ones that would get uptight about it. The kids just want to watch their cars race.